II. entered the haven of Sau after a fortunate cruise
to Puanit, without having lost a vessel or even a single man. Navigation
is difficult in the Red Sea. The coast as a rule is precipitous,
bristling with reefs and islets, and almost entirely without strand or
haven. No river or stream runs into it; it is bordered by no fertile or
wooded tract, but by high cliffs, half disintegrated by the burning sun,
or by steep mountains, which appear sometimes a dull red, sometimes
a dingy grey colour, according to the material--granite or
sandstone--which predominates in their composition. The few tribes who
inhabit this desolate region maintain a miserable existence by fishing
and hunting: they were considered, during the Greek period, to be
the most unfortunate of mortals, and if they appeared to be so to the
mariners of the Ptolemies, doubtless they enjoyed the same reputation in
the more remote time of the Pharaohs. A few fishing villages, however,
are mentioned as scattered along the littoral; watering-places, at some
distance apart, frequented on account of their wells of brackish water
by the desert tribes: such were Nahasit, Tap-Nekhabit, Sau, and Tau:
these the Egyptian merchant-vessels used as victualling stations,
and took away as cargo the products of the country--mother-of-pearl,
amethysts, emeralds, a little lapis-lazuli, a little gold, gums, and
sweet-smelling resins. If the weather was favourable, and the intake
of merchandise had been scanty, the vessel, braving numerous risks of
shipwreck, continued its course as far as the latitude of Suakin and
Massowah, which was the beginning of Puanit properly so called. Here
riches poured down to the coast from the interior, and selection became
a difficulty: it was hard to decide which would make the best cargo,
ivory or ebony, panthers' skins or rings of gold, myrrh, incense, or a
score of other sweet-smelling gums. So many of these odoriferous resins
were used for religious purposes, that it was always to the advantage of
the merchant to procure as much of them as possible: incense, fresh or
dried, was the staple and characteristic merchandise of the Red Sea, and
the good people of Egypt pictured Puanit as a land of perfumes, which
attracted the sailor from afar by the delicious odours which were wafted
from it.

These voyages were dangerous and trying: popular imagination seized upon
them and made material out of them for marvellous tales. The hero chosen
was always a